Generally speaking, interior equipment components in aircraft passenger cabins are attached, at the foot end to or in the cabin floor, and/or at the head end in the ceiling region of the passenger cabin. Such interior equipment components include, for example, hat racks, galleys, storages, purser working stations, entertaining control centers, or class dividers, which overall within the context of the present invention are designated by the term “interior equipment components.”
For attachment of the interior equipment components at the foot end, component- and position-related screwed connections such as, for example, seat rails may be used, which have even attachment spacing in a longitudinal direction of the aircraft. In contrast to this, for attachment of the interior equipment components at the head end, as a rule framework components are used that at the upper fuselage structure of the aircraft are individually designed in relation to the respective interior equipment components and their installation positions, as well as specially milled structures. These structures introduce loads to the fuselage that comprises frame elements, stringers and an exterior skin, which loads are caused by the interior equipment components.
In the case of such conventional attachment of interior equipment components with the use of specially designed framework components and milled structures for attaching the interior equipment components at the head end, attachment may be individually matched to the desired cabin configuration. Thus, advantages provided by the even hole spacing or attachment spacing in the seat rails in the cabin floor, or provided by comparable structures on the fuselage side, may not be used for interior equipment components that are to be attached at the head end.
Conventional attachment of interior equipment components thus results in comparatively inflexible cabin configurations, which can be converted only with considerably construction effort. Thus any change in the cabin configuration, for reasons of structural attachment of the interior equipment components with the use of specially designed framework components and corresponding milled structures alone, may result in a large number of components that have to be specially replaced. Furthermore, such extensive changes in the cabin configuration may be carried out by specially certified development enterprises with the participation of the relevant approval authorities, which in the case of reconfiguration of the cabin may result in considerable financial expenditure due to extended downtimes.
Starting from the above-described known way of attaching interior equipment components in passenger cabins, which way of attaching components may result in a relatively inflexible cabin configuration, there may be a need to state an implementation by which interior equipment components can be attached relatively flexibly in a passenger cabin in contrast to the known way of attaching interior equipment components. In addition, other needs, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary, detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.